Blanchett should NOT get the Academy Award for best leading actress in Blue Jasmine.

From where I sat with my similarly unimpressed daughters, this is a dull, miserable, one-dimensional Woody Allen film.

Oscar favourite: Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. Photo: Supplied

His directing is obvious; his writing predictable.

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Our Cate does well playing an unlikeable Jasmine, sure. But Allen gives her no redeeming features or layers with which to work. You end up hating not empathising. There's a fine line, too, between homage to Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and dumbing down its complexity.

For those reasons alone Our Cate should be overlooked at the March 2 ceremony.

Every other awards panel disagrees with me. Oscar voters must decide by next Monday. So if you like Our Cate's chances for Oscar, put your money where your mouth is. For a $1000 bet, there's a $15 profit on offer with some bookies.

I'd rather bet $15 to win $1000 and not feel icky.

The ickiness comes through Allen, who was accused of child molestation in the early 1990s.

Allen's adopted daughter Dylan Farrow re-accused him on February 1, writing in The New York Times that he had sexually assaulted her in a ''dim, closet-like attic'' when she was seven years old.

''What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett?'' Dylan asked.

It's been a painful situation for Allen, who denies everything, and actress Mia Farrow - his former wife - and their families. That's a point Our Cate has made, while wishing they find some sort of resolution and peace.

Remember, the Allen-Farrow rift began when Allen had an affair with and later married Soon-yi Previn - a girl Farrow and former husband Andre Previn adopted.

Given all that, it's hard not to feel icky when watching Blue Jasmine.

Two adopted women, Jasmine and sister Ginger, carry the scars of being loved and ignored respectively by their shared adoptive parents. Ginger ran away from home.

Ginger's noisy kids annoy Jasmine, who had driven her own son away in her selfish heyday. True, Jasmine now suffers a mental illness but she always put herself first and looked the other way when things went wrong.

The ickiness might be less sticky if Allen's screenplay had some overarching message for good.

Sure, the Oscar is not a moral righteousness contest. It's acting. But contrast how some critics readily rush to infer unintended negative modern themes from the words of authors, to how easily they ignore the cloud over Allen.

Some ethicists even argue it is wrong to hold the icky factor against Allen when so many other great awards have been bestowed on scumbags.

Maybe. Yet look how Allen is hanging Our Cate out to dry. If he were confident about the artistic merit of Blue Jasmine and his denials of child abuse, he would stand with her should she win the Oscar.

Fat chance. He didn't turn up to accept a lifetime achievement gong at the Golden Globes a few weeks before Dylan's letter. Allen and Soon-yi have been heckled on Broadway already this week.

So what will Our Cate say when Allen doesn't turn up? In 2005 she won best supporting actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. In her acceptance speech she thanked director Martin Scorsese. ''I hope my son will marry your daughter,'' Our Cate said.

After winning the Golden Globe, before the molestation claims resurfaced, Our Cate thanked Allen for his writing and directing.

Yet her acceptance speech at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards on Sunday noticeably did not name Allen.

If I'm right, Our Cate won't have to make a 2014 Oscars speech anyway.

But you might have noticed by now the fatal flaw in my argument.

Someone else has to win.

There's Sandra Bullock in Gravity, Judi Dench in Philomena, Meryl Streep in August: Osage County or Amy Adams in American Hustle.

Like many cinema-goers, I marvelled at Adams' performance. I was also distracted by one question: how did she avoid catching the death of cold, given her low-cut dresses created by Oscar-nominated Australian costume designer Michael Wilkinson.

Wilkinson deserves to win an Oscar.

So does Adams. You can get 16-1 about her from some bookies. Bet $1000 for a $16,000 profit.

I'll take that low-cut Adams longshot over the Blue Jasmine icky factor any day.

Such is life …

astokes@fairfaxmedia.com.au

169 comments

And if that turgid BAFTA acceptance speech wasn't a clear attempt to not mention Allen, to not say "hey, he obviously doesn't understand boundaries where children and family are concerned, but we'll worship him anyway because he makes poorly written and dull movies that critics adore but the general public loathe", I'll eat my genuine Akubra.

Commenter

Cynical

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February 18, 2014, 9:27PM

What a miserable and negative article. Come on Stokes surely you can do better than this Facebook-esque one dimensional offering ... maybe not?

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Angry Of kenthust

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February 19, 2014, 4:59AM

Cynical, when are we going to see the end of these "red carpet" self praising events.These people do not live in the real world, there own lives are like living in a story book.

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Thepres

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February 19, 2014, 6:37AM

Totally agree with the writer, about time more critics put the boot into Allen's "genius"

He isn't - he was very good a witty, conversational comedy and parlayed into a number of films that meant something in the seventies but are as funny as watching Charlie Chaplin now.

His movies were never great, haven't stood the test of time and since Manhattan have been getting steadily worse.

Yet each new one is greeted as his best film in years and a return to form.

He's got nothing to say over and over in exactly the same way.

Amy Goodman all the way.

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The brown note

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February 19, 2014, 7:02AM

Each to their own - I think Woody Allen has made some brilliant movies. I was a fan of many of his flicks way before his family issues were subject to scrutiny. If reviewing the movie and not the man, I'm going to say that Blue Jasmine is an excellent piece of work and I think Cate's performance is absolutely first rate.

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Rocco

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February 19, 2014, 7:31AM

excellent article. about time someone spoke the truth. and when did histrionics get confused with acting. there is certainly something icky about all of this, but also something preening.

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iris

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February 19, 2014, 7:49AM

+1

I've always been a great admirer of Cate Blachett's work on both an artistic and political level, but was very saddened and unimpressed by her response to Dylan Farrow's open letter. It was basically a total dismissal of the issue with an insincere-sounding "I hope this family can find some peace" (read: "I hope this issue will go away").

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Red Pony

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February 19, 2014, 8:01AM

Cate is not being nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, or Best Film. Her acting has nothing to do with Allen's alleged child abuse. She's nominated for Best Actress, and that's what she ought to be judged for. Having seen the nominated actresses in their films, I have to agree with the majority of the critics. Cate was simply superb. Describing her complex character in one dimensional terms ('icky"? really?) only demonstrates to me that critics of Cate just didn't get it. Streep's character is the only one that comes close to Cate's in terms of complexity. And Bullock for Gravity? Great film, but no challenge for any half-decent actress.

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Mythbuster

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February 19, 2014, 8:11AM

@ Red Pony - How do you expect her to react to what amounts to an unsubstantiated allegation the worst kind of conduct in circumstances where the accused vehemently denies wrongdoing? This is not a case where anyone has been charged, tried, convicted or admitted wrong doing (ala Roman Polanski) or where these is any real evidence other than the word of the accuser and the accused.

To respond in any other way would be irresponsible and quite potentially libelous.

And since when does the character played having no redeeming features rule out an Oscar winning performance, Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Denzell Washington in Training Day, Forrest Whitaker Last King of Scotland, Louise Fletcher One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kathy Bates Misery, Charlize Theron Monster etc etc etc

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justaguy

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February 19, 2014, 9:27AM

Agree totally. And Blanchetts extremely high opinion of herself is not very endearing. She also felt she needed to lecture the Australian public on climate change, because we're too stupid to understand it without being told by an actor.